I Thessalonians 5:1-28
Do not quench the Spirit. (v. 19) First David, then Michael encouraged us to become a “Three Streams” church – sacramental, scriptural, Spirit-filled. It’s not hard to buy into those first two streams; it’s easy to see that St. Andrew’s is both sacramental and scriptural. But I fear that there are too many who do not have a good sense of what it means to be Spirit-filled, do not have a good grasp of who the Holy Spirit is, what He does, how He fills us. Our Men’s Group has been looking at this third stream, first in John 14-16, then in other references to the Holy Spirt in the rest of the Gospels, then in Acts of the Apostles, and finally in the Epistles. And we have found a treasure trove of characteristics and activities in which the Spirit is engaged. We have listed 56 references to the Spirit in the book of Acts alone and next week will be our third session looking just at those references. Even something as (seemingly) simple as “being filled with the Holy Spirit” or “full of the Holy Spirit” can have different meanings or different manifestations depending on the context in which these phrases are stated. We have learned that we can’t put the Holy Spirit in a box, that we can’t know Him to be this or that – He is who He is, and He is constantly at work in and among us. Rather than quenching the Spirit we need to be asking to be filled with the Spirit each and every day – and that’s not me speaking, that’s Archbishop Beach’s challenge, his encouragement to us. Be filled with the Holy Spirit each and every day!
See also: April 9 / I Thess. 5:1-11; April 10 / I Thess. 5:12-28